Adelaide Student Politics

Posted: 16th August. Written around a month before.
To appear in the upcoming (week 6) issue of On Dit. Same topic as Hannah's post, but slightly different.

In the middle of 2006, Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) came into existence. A long-time ambition of the Howard government, it radically altered the nature and revenue of student unions throughout the country. No longer were students required to join their student union, and pay to fund its activities. One result of this radical change, which saw union revenues trickle to a fraction of their former flow, was the now in some sections obsolete nature of the constitution of the Adelaide University Union (AUU). As such, many Board candidates ran in 2008 on a platform of reforming the AUU Constitution. They have come good on their word, with a draft document ready to be voted upon by the student population in the upcoming student elections. Nonetheless, several issues of contention threaten to derail the entire process. Board initially came to a majority decision on these issues, but some Board directors have found them so contentious that an agreement between eighteen elected students was not felt to be representative enough.

Given that the new constitution must be passed by a majority of at least 10% of students, a significant ‘no’ vote threatens to waste the hard and much needed work of the 2008-2009 Board. For this reason, and as the union is ultimately there to represent the wishes of its student constituents, Board has decided to separate out the controversial questions from the routine updating required, giving students the ability to vote on the two parts separately.

The first issue of contention is the number of Board directors to sit on the union board. Most stakeholders, such as the university and the union affiliates, have expressed a desire to see the number of Board directors reduced from eighteen, with proposals ranging from 12 through to 16. Board eventually agreed on 16. Many left-wing Board directors argue that decreasing the number of Board directors will have the effect of making it more difficult for independents to get on Board, as they are the ones who typically scrap in the final positions. Independents often act as the whistle-blowers of the AUU, and are often the key conscious votes in many decisions. Many right-wing Board directors say that it is the responsibility of the union to represent the wishes of its stakeholders, who have explicitly said they want less people to deal with. Furthermore, they argue that having more positions politicizes the whole thing, as instead of having a handful of committed students one has a larger body to be held under the sway of factional heads. In the upcoming elections, you will get to chose between keeping the current number as is, or decreasing it to 16.

The other issue regards the removal of a Board director. The new constitution has a proposed clause allowing an elected Board director to be removed for misconduct, provided a three-quarter majority of Board directors agree on whether a particular situation warrants it. Proponents say that it is difficult to get even a simple majority of Board directors to agree on anything, and thus this power would only be exercised in situations of unambiguous wrongdoing. Opponents argue that the AUU Board is not an impartial court, and fear that this will leave politically vulnerable but democratically elected candidates in peril of losing their position. As this issue threatened to unhinge the hard-fought unity of the AUU Board in presenting this constitution, it has also been left up to the voters.

Linked to this is the issue of by-elections. Currently, if several vacancies exist on AUU Board, a by-election is held to fill them. These are very expensive. For this reason, an alternate way to fill vacancies has been proposed, namely, to offer the position to the person who was the first cutoff on the ballot. This way of filling vacancies was itself a compromise between the Board, who were presented with three ways in which by-elections might be avoided. Proponents of this change say it will save the AUU a lot of money which could be more productively used. Opponents fear that it will be used, in combination with the power to remove Board directors described above, to replace disfavoured candidates with those more factionally palatable who just missed out. It is a truism that by-elections are the most democratic method of filling vacancies. The question is thus whether they are worth the expense and effort.